Mapping Plasticity in the Forepaw Digit Barrel Subfield of Rat Brains Using Functional MRI

Overview

Journal Neuroimage

Specialty Radiology

Date 2010 Sep 1

PMID 20804851

Citations 2

Authors

Jun-Cheng Weng

Kai-Hsiang Chuang

Artem Goloshevsky

Stephen J Dodd

Kathryn Sharer

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The topographic organization of the forepaw barrel subfield in layer IV of rat primary somatosensory cortex (S1) is a good model for studying neural function and plasticity. The goal of this study was to test the feasibility of functional MRI (fMRI) to map the forepaw digit representations in the S1 of the rat and its plasticity after digit amputation. Three dimensional echo-planar imaging with 300 micron isotropic resolution at 11.7 T was used to achieve high signal-to-noise ratios and laminar layer resolution. By alternating electrical stimulation of the 2nd (D2) and 4th (D4) digits, functional activation in layer IV of the barrel subfields could be distinguished using a differential analysis. Furthermore, 2 and a half months after the amputation of the 3rd digit in baby rats, the overlapping area between D2 and D4 representations was increased. This indicates that the forepaw barrel subfield previously associated with the ablated digit is now associated with the representation of nearby digits, which is consistent with studies using electrophysiology and cytochrome oxidase staining.

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